RS McColl

RS McColl
Retail
Founded 1901
Website www.mccolls.co.uk

RS McColl, or "McColl's" is a Scottish newsagent company named after Robert Smyth McColl, who was a professional footballer. It was founded in 1901 by McColl and his brother Tom.[1]

RS McColl is a trading name of McColls Retail Group, It has been a prominent Scottish confectioner and newsagent and has been owned in the past by Cadburys and the Southland Corporation of America (7-Eleven).

On April 30th, 1964, the day after The Beatles played at the ABC Cinema in Lothian Road, Edinburgh, John Lennon, who had stayed overnight with his cousin Stan Parkes at his home in Currie, rather than in a hotel, walked into the Currie branch of RS McColl's to buy some cigarettes. The shop assistant, on looking up to see who'd come into the shop, fainted, according to Parkes.

Business background and history

McColls shop in York
McColls shop in Larkhall, Bath

In November 1998, RS McColl became part of TM Retail when Forbuoys (a subsidiary of TM Retail) acquired Martin Retail Group, creating Great Britain's largest chain of newsagents. In addition to RS McColl, TM Retail's former trading names include; Forbuoys, Martin's, Dillons (purchased from One Stop Stores Ltd following the takeover by Tesco of parent company T&S Stores),[2] McColls and More.

In 2006, TM Retail was renamed Martin McColl Limited,[3] after a management buyout. The various stores were then rebranded variously as Martin's (news and variety stores) or McColl's (convenience stores). The only exceptions were the Scottish stores where the RS McColl name was retained. With this re branding, all other names the company operates under were removed, these included Martins the Newsagents, More, Forbuoys and Dillons.

From 2009 to 2010, Martin McColl Limited underwent a multi million pound EPOS refit within their stores, replacing their existing EPOS system with a new multi screen touch screen system. It was hoped this would speed up the transaction process by incorporating Credit/Debit card systems within the EPOS. The multi screen system allows advertising POS to be electronically displayed to customers during the time that they are at the till. By 2011, expansion for the new system had been developed, with the addition of built in PayPoint terminals known as PPOD

During 2012 to 2013, a barcode system was implemented to scan lottery tickets through the till making transactions more accurate and reducing the chances of human error. Martin McColl began another rebrand making the stores more appealing to customers and changed their POS format to go with the new brand. Martin McColl worked hard to give better deals to the customer and ensure the customer had a good experience through better deals and better communication with staff and customers.[4]

In March 2013, Martin McColl's implemented a company wide change in the colouring of SEL's and POS, opting for 'ivory' SEL strips and a mixture of block coloured red and white POS material.

In August 2013, the group changed its name from Martin McColl Retail Group to McColls Retail Group.

References

  1. ↑ "Robert S. McColl - An unofficial Queen's Park FC Website" Archived 14 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine.. Accessed May 2011.
  2. ↑ Dillons Stores Ltd sold to TM Retail Archived 30 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ↑ TM Retail rebranded Archived 17 September 2012 at Archive.is
  4. ↑ Martin McColl in PayPoint roll-out
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